The Ways Of White Folks Quotes & Sayings

On January 1, they proclaimed the independence of a new country, which they called Haiti - the name they believed the original Taino inhabitants had used before the Spaniards killed them all. Although the country's history would be marked by massacre, civil war, dictatorship, and disaster, and although white nations have always found ways to exclude Haiti from international community, independent Haiti's first constitution created a radical new concept of citizenship: only black people could be citizens of Haiti. And who was black? All who would say they rejected both France and slavery and would accept the fact that black folks ruled Haiti. Thus, even a "white" person could become a "black" citizen of Haiti, as long as he or she rejected the assumption that whites should rule and Africans serve.18 — Edward E. Baptist

You gotta figure out who you can rely on when things've gone past bad. You gotta know who's got your back when the whole damn world's falling apart - and you gotta be the same way for them as they are for you, otherwise it don't mean nothing, you got that? If it ain't both ways it don't mean nothing. I'm talking 'bout them you'd take a bullet for, and them'd do the same for you. Folks you'd die for. Folks who'd die for you. That's who you gotta hold on to. That's who you gotta protect. Everything else, it ain't worth spit. Just them that matter, that's all you gotta think of. Just them that matter. — Ben White